


The Second Toughest Thing He Ever Had To Do

by faithlessone



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:36:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3851206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithlessone/pseuds/faithlessone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Horizon. Seeing her had been the toughest thing he ever had to do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Second Toughest Thing He Ever Had To Do

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to my best friend, Emma, without whom I never would have discovered Mass Effect. <3

The knock on the door was not unexpected, if Kaidan was truly honest with himself. Nor was the man standing behind it.

“Sir?”

The look on Anderson’s face told him nothing he didn’t already know. It wasn’t good. Kaidan watched him take in his own less than presentable appearance, the empty beer bottles on the coffee table, and the broken mirror hanging off the wall.

“At ease, Commander.”

Almost shaking with the effort of standing to attention, he took the order as permission to sink back down onto the sofa, head falling involuntarily back into his hands.

“Disciplined. Precise. Consistent. These are the adjectives I would usually use to describe you, Alenko,” Anderson stated calmly. “Structured. Reliable. Controlled.”

Kaidan resisted the urge to look up.

“When I received your report on your last assignment, I was anticipating a little less than the standard I’ve come to expect from you. I understand it was tough. It was a bastard of a mission, no one can deny it. But this?”

The datapad landed on the coffee table with a clatter, knocking one of the bottles aside. It took everything in him not to wince at the sound.

“This is unacceptable.”

Kaidan pressed his eyes closed. He knew what was on the datapad. His report on Horizon had been written in a stupor, blind-drunk and emotional as hell. It was a sarcastic, badly-formatted, barely-veiled attack on the Alliance in general, Anderson in particular and… her. Whatever she was. It should never have seen the light of day, let alone been submitted to his commanding officer.

He was going to get court-martialled.

He deserved it.

Hell, they hadn’t kicked him out after Alchera. They could have done. Should have done. Psychiatrists and suicide watch and a marine detail outside his door for months, but no one had once mentioned a dishonourable discharge. Or an honourable one, come to that.

This was worse.

“Anything to say for yourself?”

Moving felt like too much effort. Answering the door had taken what little he had left.

“We can’t afford another distraction like this, Alenko,” Anderson continued.

‘Distraction.’ Like losing half a colony and seeing… her, had been a momentary interruption in his duties. A passing inconvenience. A blip on the radar.

“I wouldn’t have sent you there if I didn’t believe you could take it.”

Kaidan breathed a laugh. Anderson, probably the galaxy’s foremost authority on all things… her, and he had believed Kaidan could ‘take’ seeing her? Now? After all this time?

“The Alliance can’t afford to lose you again.”

He flexed his hands against his head, remembering, unwillingly, how they had felt pressed against her armour. The ache of familiarity that he thought he had long since forced out of his brain.

“The galaxy can’t afford to lose you.”

He hadn’t thought anything could hurt as much as standing on Alchera, waiting for an escape pod that would never come, but having her in his arms and then seeing what she had become had been worse. Two years apart, two years mourning, two years piecing himself back together, and all she could say was “how’ve you been?”

“There’s no one else I could have trusted to do it.”

‘Trusted’. Even in his worst nightmares, he never could have imagined… that. She was… herself. Completely. Exactly. Just as she had been the last time they saw each other. Like no time at all had passed for her. If she’d reacted differently, if she’d apologised, if she hadn’t really been working for… them. It could have gone down differently. He could have been on that ship they dared call Normandy by now. With her.

“You need to pull yourself together, Commander.”

What he needed was for Anderson to leave, so he could slip into the sweet oblivion of the whiskey he had thus far denied himself. Not that he would ever dare admit that out loud.

“You need to find a reason to go on.”

He regretted not being able to trust her. He regretted not following her onto the Normandy. He regretted not turning his back on the Alliance for her. How do you go on after that?

"I don't care what it is, as long as you find something to believe in."

Kaidan couldn’t take it a single second longer. He forced himself to his feet, ignoring his brain pounding against his skull and the dark spots blurring his vision.

"I believed in _her_. And, with all due respect, sir, it didn't do either of us any fucking good."

Anderson dropped his head.

“You’re angry, that’s fine. That’s expected. But she’s doing it for the right reasons, Alenko. We can’t help her right now, but we need to trust that. We need to trust that she knows what she’s doing.”

Kaidan rolled his eyes and immediately regretted how much it hurt. “I don’t trust them.”

“And you think she does?”

“I think she’s still working for them. I think she’s staying on a mockery of our ship that they custom built for her. I think she didn’t come running back to the Alliance as soon as she had the chance.”

Anderson let out a heavy breath and met Kaidan’s eyes.

“What could we do for her? The council don’t trust her, the brass can’t trust her, especially after two years gone. The Alliance would have her in a lab, tested to within an inch of her life, every cell of her body analysed to try and reverse-engineer what they did to her. Then they’d probably stick her behind a desk or on some hellish recruitment drive until someone underestimated her and she stole another spaceship. At least she’s out there. Doing what needs to be done.”

“Like I should be?”

Anderson laughed. The noise seemed to echo around the room, breaking the tension that had settled so heavily.

“Exactly. I expect your report on my desk by oh-eight-hundred tomorrow, Commander. We’ll… ignore that one.”

Kaidan nodded once, gratefully.

Anderson turned to leave, then paused. “It might help, you know. Telling her.”

The door shut behind him and Kaidan forced himself over to the countertop. A glass. A bottle. Liquid courage for the second toughest thing he had ever had to do in his life.

He downed the whiskey in one swift movement and opened a new composition window. She probably wouldn’t get to read it. They were certainly screening her mail and he doubted they’d ever let him through the net. Couldn’t risk their prize pet getting distracted, getting emotional, running back to the Alliance. But maybe.

Maybe it would get through. Maybe they’d slip up and miss it. Maybe they’d even let her see it.

His fingers hovered over the input, unsure of how to start.

‘Keep it simple, Alenko,’ ordered the voice in the back of his head, the one that sounded so much like her.

Simple. Right.

“Shepard, I'm sorry.”


End file.
